Phil in SF wants to read The Chinese Groove by Kathryn Ma
Anne Tyler meets Jade Chang in this buoyant, good-hearted, and sharply written novel about a …
Checked out from SFPL. I figure I'll need a second audiobook for my flight back on Wednesday.
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aka @kingrat@sfba.social. I'm following a lot of bookwyrm accounts, since that seems to be the only way to get reviews from larger servers to this small server. I make a lot of Bookwyrm lists. I will like & boost a lot of reviews that come across my feed. I will follow most bookwyrm accounts back if they review & comment. Social reading should be social.
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Phil in SF's books
2026 Reading Goal
63% complete! Phil in SF has read 19 of 30 books.
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Phil in SF started reading The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald (Berit Gardner, #1)
The best stories are the ones we didn’t know needed to be told.
The small, …
Been a month or two since I popped an audiobook into Libby, but I wanted to get a good walk in today and i have two cross-country flights in the next three days. I'm not normally a fan of cozies, but when I listen to audiobooks I need something not too intense, so I'll see how this goes.
Phil in SF wants to read Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, …
On hold with Santa Clara County Libraries.
Phil in SF started reading The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander
The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander
The Only Harmless Great Thing is a heart-wrenching alternative history by Brooke Bolander that imagines an intersection between the Radium …
Phil in SF reviewed The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been …
Obtuse
2 stars
The writing is waaaaay too obtuse. The story takes a cool concept (an ancient, immortal being seeks mortality) and puts a very new coat of paint on it. Unfortunately, it tries to be too thinky about it.
Phil in SF commented on The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been …
Interesting, but slow reading. there's some sections i just don't understand that slow me down.
Phil in SF quoted The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been …
As I crossed a room with possets, a brash young lordling took a hold of my breast and began to laugh at what he felt and I begged him to let me go and a woman still resplendent in a tiara and nothing else joined him in his investigations and those about them laughed eagerly enough.
— The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville, Keanu Reeves (Page 68)
new vocabulary: posset
: a hot drink of sweetened and spiced milk curdled with ale or wine
Phil in SF quoted The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been …
She crossed referenced them with reports from the field agents who had been there with him when he had gone down, who had seen it all. Trained specialists, instilled with muscle memory to militate against panic and the excitable solecisms of untrained witnesses.
— The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville, Keanu Reeves (Page 48)
new vocabulary: solecism
1: an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence also : a minor blunder in speech
2: something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order
3: a breach of etiquette or decorum
Phil in SF quoted The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been …
Then he too reached for the metal and wood interlocked like spillikins beyond the threshold.
— The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville, Keanu Reeves (Page 19)
new vocabulary: spillikins
jackstraws. a game in which a set of straws or thin strips is let fall in a heap with each player in turn trying to remove one at a time without disturbing the rest.
Phil in SF quoted The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville
She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.
There have always been …
The floor was a foul sastrugi of oil and dust, the clots of a drabber black that he knew was blood.
— The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville, Keanu Reeves (Page 13)
new vocabulary: sastrugi
parallel wave-like ridges caused by winds on the surface of hard snow, especially in polar regions
Phil in SF replied to knizer@bookwyrm.social's status
@knizer@bookwyrm.social I find in general that complicated narratives are difficult for me to follow in audiobook. I gotta get them on paper.
Phil in SF commented on The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking by Brooke Borel
“A column by Glenn Garvin on Dec. 20 stated that the National Science Foundation ‘funded …
So far, I'm not thrilled with this book. It purports to be a how-to guide, but so far it's very hand-wavey.
For instance, the chapter on what to fact check says "everything". It's instructions on what to prioritize don't go mich beyond "things that are important to the story" and "things that will take effort". The chapter on how does not propose much of a system for tracking facts, tracking effort, and also is very geared toward paper copies.
(I'm not kidding about "everything". in the part that supposedly says how to modify the process to identify what should be fact checked for electronic documents, Borel writes: "Make a separate copy of the story file and rename it. Then, using your software tools, either highlight or boldface the entire text." That is so useless.)
it's an easy read so far, so I'm likely to stick through it, but I'm not …
So far, I'm not thrilled with this book. It purports to be a how-to guide, but so far it's very hand-wavey.
For instance, the chapter on what to fact check says "everything". It's instructions on what to prioritize don't go mich beyond "things that are important to the story" and "things that will take effort". The chapter on how does not propose much of a system for tracking facts, tracking effort, and also is very geared toward paper copies.
(I'm not kidding about "everything". in the part that supposedly says how to modify the process to identify what should be fact checked for electronic documents, Borel writes: "Make a separate copy of the story file and rename it. Then, using your software tools, either highlight or boldface the entire text." That is so useless.)
it's an easy read so far, so I'm likely to stick through it, but I'm not impressed at this point.
Phil in SF
boosted
Divya Manian reviewed The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats.
Nor do they have tails.
But they …
Another excellent Fantasy from P. Djéli Clark
5 stars
It has been SO RARE to read fantasy that is based on Black & African traditions. I am so delighted that P. Djéli Clark has woven yet another set of worlds that is delightful & action packed. I feel this is a book that would be suitable for young teens and above. What a wonderful tale. Not one dull moment.
Phil in SF reviewed The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Thirty years ago, Elma York led the expedition that paved the way to life on …
probably hits me in the feels because I've read three books in the series already
4 stars
This was originally published in 2012 (as an audio story) and 2013 (as a short story), six years before The Calculating Stars. I think that if I had read it before reading the novels, I would think it a rather banal story of an astronaut reminiscing.
However, because I read it after two novels about Elma York, it hits me in the feels as a coda to a long relationship between Elma and her husband Nathaniel. The series devotes significant words to their domestic relationship, not just to the details of going into space. It's one of the most well written science fictional relationships I've ever read. So reading about their lives nearing their ends means something, even though the story of a relationship at the end is banal in the details.
Phil in SF finished reading The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Thirty years ago, Elma York led the expedition that paved the way to life on Mars. For years she's been …